Cold Deck
by Corroding Clockwork
Summary: Sooner or later, someone is going to have to call his bluff.


Sometimes, in the silence between gunshots and bombs almost constantly flying their way, Booker reflects on Elizabeth, the woman who finds coins in odd places and has her headband wrapped around his hand. It's coated in blood now, but he assumes she doesn't mind; she hasn't asked for it back, anyhow. He forgets how innocent she is when he's leading through back alleys he's mapped out in his mind and in battles when he rips a man's head off with a skyhook and there's a squeak of shock from behind him. He thinks after each fight, each hoard of people running at him with guns out and fire engulfed bodies that she'd stop questioning morals. But no, she keeps at it and somehow, it's more endearing than annoying. Maybe more people should be locked up in towers, he thinks, half sarcastic, half frightfully serious, as she once again hands a starving child an orange and asks why people are treated this way. She doesn't know, she didn't know before this and he's the one whose lead her out into this mess, tainted her with images of reality. Elizabeth would have been better off in the ornate cage, and he sighs turning to her as the child scampers off and Booker stretches his vigor-induced hand.

"Just how things are; It's not exactly a heaven down there either." He motions to the clouds below them and the Earth that rests beneath and it's not fair of him to crush her dreams like this, but he's no one to hold his tongue and pretend everything is alright. She looks at him with curious eyes, childlike innocence shining in their depths though it's being slowly dulled with every pull of his trigger and a feeling akin to guilt grips him for a minute before he brushes it aside and reminds himself she's a bargaining chip; nothing more, nothing less. Liar, his mind seems to whisper, but he ignores that too. He's always been good at ignoring people, especially himself, and that's just how he got into this mess isn't it, he thinks bitterly and turns away from the young woman. "We should keep moving." He declares, voice quieter than usual and she seems to pick up on it because a hand is suddenly on his shoulder and his head turns toward her, gazes locking. Concern in hers; agitation and apathy in his own. She stares at him a moment and he wonders if she realizes this is what people are—broken tools that lie and manipulate, but then he remembers she doesn't fully understand what that means. Books can only tell you so much, and he swallows a hollow laugh. For someone so educated, she's amazingly ignorant.

"Booker." It's just his name but his attention is drawn to her fully, his thoughts stopping and she has her top teeth pressed into her bottom lip in worry, fingers gripping his shoulder harder. "Why are people treated like this? Has it always been this way? Can we fix it, do you… Do you know how?" She hates to see people hurting and he sighs, running his damaged hand through his hair and shaking his head. "There's no fixing something like this, Elizabeth. It's not a weapon or a machine; you can't take it apart. It's a plague, everyone as a whole and damned if we've learned how to get along without destroying each other." Booker mutters and it's not the answer she wanted ('_Of course we can fix it, we can work on it once we get to Paris'_) but it's the truth and he resists the urge to swear when those eyes dim that little bit more. "There's no cure; just learning to live with it." Isn't that the truth and he has a sudden urge to smoke, something to clear his head, but the cigarettes are gone and he suspects Elizabeth tossed them when he was sleeping. Not good for his health, she insists, though he's not sure what is good for his health at this point. Surely running through armies of highly trained men who want nothing more than to kill him is more detrimental than a pack of smokes, but he doesn't bring it up. Elizabeth removes her hand and crosses her arms, like she does when she's thinking, when she's scared and it's surprising how well he knows her. Movements, speech patterns, expressions—they're all memorized and it's a terrifying thought, being close to someone, and he rubs his arm to hide the forming goose bumps. She catches them regardless and murmurs something about him being cold and he merely shakes his head and doesn't elaborate. He doesn't like playing teacher and how the hell does he go about teaching her about emotions he himself doesn't understand? "Come on; we've got a revolutionary to find." He mutters, cocking his gun and pulling it against his chest, the shotgun warm from how long he's been holding it—since he found it outside the raffle, if he thinks hard about it, and that's so long ago the memory is blurry—and he starts to walk, the shuffle of footsteps that hit his ears just moments later signaling the woman's presence as she trails after him, silent, as she does when she's deep in thought, and he doesn't attempt to break it.

They're moving a total of five minutes before the gunshots start, the sadistic Prophet's men jumping down from skylines with firearms going off and immediately Booker is pushing Elizabeth behind a crate for safety. He double checks his ammunition—4 bullets and he wonders why the hell these things can't have larger clips—and then runs into the fray. Two pulls of the trigger and three men dead—electricity works surprisingly well and he has his shoes to than for that—and Elizabeth yells that she's still looking. His Salts have been running low for the last few hours and he yells back to throw some to her if she manages to locate some, his request answered with a 'I can try' and he merely nods, not even looking at her, and lodges another bullet into a man's head. Blood splatters his shirt and he takes a step back, a bullet grazing his shoulder where Elizabeth's hand had been just minutes earlier and he hisses, throwing an electric trap ten feet in front of him and five men are caught, their skin bubbling and their skeletons cracking until all that's left is a pile of ash. Booker isn't even fazed; he's seen worse, _done_ worse, and this is just another tally mark on his kill streak. The soldiers keep coming and he's screaming for his partner—bargaining chip, he reminds himself—to open a tear with some form of cover in it. She obliges and he ducks down behind the cement wall of another world. His shot gun is set down, carefully, and he removes his sniper from his back. It takes exactly seven shots and two hoards of bloodthirsty crows before the area grows silent and they're surrounded by corpses. Elizabeth throws him a vial of Salts that he downs immediately because he's running on empty and there's still blood pouring from his shoulder and he realizes his side has a small _hole_ in it, the tiny projectile from an enemy gun still lodged in his skin. He slides down the side of the wall and holds his side, not in the way of a dying man but in the way of someone whose _tired_ and he looks up at the woman who's rushing to his side and wonders if she's gotten used to the blood yet. From the way her face twists and her breath catches, he's willing to bet that no, no she hasn't, and he attempts a faint smile of only to keep her from going into a worried rant. "I've had worse." He assures and they both try not to cringe because it's true; if Elizabeth wasn't there he'd have been dead when an explosion damn near took the skin off his chest. The memory still burns and he tucks it away; it's not needed, and he won' dwell on it. Booker holds out a hand to her and Elizabeth takes it, pulling him to his feet (though it takes a while because she isn't _used_ to physical tasks and he has to push himself up with his good hand to assist) and he grabs his shot gun on the way up, strapping it to his back in accompaniment with his sniper.

"_False Shepherd, he who leads my lamb astray from the path of the lord…" _

There he goes again, Booker thinks and scrunches up his noise slightly in distaste and from the looks of it Elizabeth doesn't appreciate the booming voice of her father that echoes off every available surface and surrounds them in a cocoon of chastisement. Rather than stand with their tail between their legs and shame gripping their bones, Booker grabs Elizabeth's hand and drags her into a deserted toy store, his shoulder still aching and blood still staining his shirt. He mutters under his breath that some first aid would be a god-send and has to stop himself from laughing when he realizes the irony in his words. Elizabeth, it seems, hasn't noticed and perhaps it's better that way. She doesn't need to understand everything fully, not yet, not ever, and once they're out of here and to New York this entire life will be gone and she'll never have to think back on the facts and the fiction that occurred here. The door slams behind them, sending shards of broken glass clattering to the floor but it's given no attention. Unless it's someone out to kill them, they rarely notice their surroundings and how fucked up is that, Booker says aloud, accident, and Elizabeth gives him a confused stare. He shakes his head, waves a hand in a way of asking her not to question his sudden swearing and declaration of just how screwed up everything is. She isn't content with the response, it's clear on her face, but she does not persist, throwing a bag of medical supplies his way and he thanks her with a low grunt. The voice outside continues to yell and accuse but Booker just raises a middle finger to the man who cannot possibly see them, and in turn, cannot be seen. Doesn't matter, makes him feel better, and he unrolls a package of gauze that is promptly applied to his bleeding torso. He doesn't question why the bandage material is sticky or blue—it's been that way since he arrived here—he just knows it helps, the pain disappears and he's no longer concerned at how frail his body seems to be when put to the test. Only human, the idea is bile and he runs a tongue over his lips as though that would eliminate the foul taste of self-hatred that grips him like a vice. He leans back against a wall, watching the young woman walk around the store, scavenging and there's the occasional declaration that she's found money and a coin is tossed his way. For the most part, they find nothing of interest and this is merely a place to wait, to be calm and attempt, in vain, to unwind the eternally tense muscles that stems from high levels of anxiety. Minutes pass and the booming sound of Comstock's threats vanish and Booker releases a breath he wasn't aware he was holding. "We should move." It's his voice but he doesn't really register that he's speaking, something that happens too often for comfort lately, as he begins to walk back to the door.

"Booker, wait." And he does, the simple request enough to halt both his legs and the action of removing a gun from his back. Their eyes meet and he raises an eyebrow, a subtle _what_ and she holds up a gold chain with a locket attached and it dangles aimlessly from her hand. "Do you… Do you think it would be okay if I took this?" He wants to laugh at the absurdity of the question. The town is in shambles, they've got people attempting to kill them left and right, corpses line the streets and she's worried about _looting_. Yet he does not say that, and merely purses his lips, brows furrowing in confusion because there's a second, though not particularly important, inquiry that forms within his mind and he can't help but ask it. "Don't you already have an accessory?" He asks, motioning to the choker upon her neck that carries the adornment of an ornate bird, and Elizabeth carries a hand to her throat, fingers tracing the design of the winged animal. There's hesitation, she's thinking, then the woman merely shakes her head and starts to put the locket back, resulting in a roll of his eyes and he walks over, taking the golden necklace from her and before she can protest he has it around her neck and is fastening the clasp. It falls neatly upon her breasts, the perfect length and it clashes slightly but she _wanted_ it and that's good enough he supposes. She stares at him a moment and he offers a shrug in response—no smile, no pat on the shoulder, just an apathetic movement of the shoulders—and begins to leave again. She murmurs a soft _thank you_ and he doesn't respond but Elizabeth is walking right behind him and there's a ghost of a smile upon her face, the first real one in a long time and there's a small sense of pride that he refuses to show. _He_ did that and it takes a moment to dawn on him that he's taking pride in someone else's joy. It's been a while since he's helped someone instead of hurting them and he makes a mental note that he's getting too attached and his walls are falling dangerously fast. He swallows, think and hard and his mouth is dry because maybe he's been wrong, he realizes as a machine gun begins to fire from a rooftop nearby and Elizabeth shouts 'fireman!' before ducking for cover to his left. Maybe the innocent one was never her, maybe she sees the things he's never thought to look for and he realizes in an instant as he pulls a single trigger and the man up on the shingles falls to the ground in a desolate heap that he's the one who doesn't get it—not her.

It's not love, he repeats over in his head, it's possible infatuation at _most_ and there's a tiny voice that's been popping up far too frequently lately that whispers 'liar' and he scowls before blowing a man's head off. A Fireman lobs a ball of embers at him and he ducks just in time, the flames licking at his scalp and for once he's _happy_ to see the walking furnace, a target for him to take his frustrations out on because sudden realizations in the middle of a firefight isn't exactly stress relieving. It takes a total of one minute to take man down and it's not until he's standing over the offender's corpse, a blood coated shotgun in hand because he'd run out ammo and had to beat the damn thing's head in when the trigger became useless, that he finally lets out a breath and stumbles back, holding a hand to his head. Elizabeth is at his side immediately, saying something about how he doesn't look so good but he can barely make out her words. Everything is muffled and the world is spinning and Booker shakes his head, a vain attempt at clearing it before waving her off. She's a bargaining chip, nothing else, and his chest constricts at the idea and he knows he's in over his head when she looks at him with ice blue eyes and he swears they're going to Paris (Fuck New York, he's been wanting out of that corrupted hole for years) when they board that airship because he'll be damned if that light in her eyes goes out completely. But that's another thought, for another day, and he has to remind himself that this is a _job_ as he gives a curt nod and a wave of his hand and begins to walk again, the young woman trailing closely behind him. Somehow he knows he can't finish this, but he's always been good at lying, and he'll keep telling himself nothing has changed until they're staring at the Eiffel Tower and not the Statue of Liberty. Nothing unusual; waiting until it's too late has always been his style, he thinks with a frown and his fingers tighten on the gun in his hands.

No point breaking the chain, not now, when he's already strung together such a long streak of mistakes.


End file.
